Dark of the Moon

I don't believe Michael Bay has ever met a special effect he didn't like or an object he didn't want to blow up. For those fans of Michael Bay you are gonna get more of the same, maybe even a little darker than his attempts before. For those of you who are fans of non-stop action and that is all you need from a movie than by all means stop reading here and enjoy the film. I am not a Michael Bay fan and maybe that bias gets in the way, but good lord was this a dumb movie.

The film opens up with the audience discovering that the reason we went to the moon was to find Cybertronian technology before those damn Sputniks. With the back story out of the way we find ourselves cut back to present day with an up-skirt shot of Rosie Huntington-White. She represents the new beau in the movie since Megan Fox was replaced, and I can only imagine Rosie was cast due to her extensive acting past. Well she just so happens to be pretty easy on the eyes as well and Bay makes sure you get plenty of gratuitous shots of her throughout the movie.

After she finishes climbing the stairs in just a button down shirt we see that our hero Sam Witwicky is in a difficult situation again and despite saving the world twice still cannot find a job. Somehow despite having incredibly hot women at his feet and a talking car at his fingers he always opens the movie like a whiney little bitch, and this time he may be at his whiniest. Not only does Shia Lebeouf return as our leading man, but he is also accompanied by annoying miniature sidekicks again. This time they are not the semi-racist mini coopers from the second one, but rather they are even tinier, mostly pocket sized. While frustrating that Bay still felt he needed to include campy sidekicks in this movie, at least this time they aren’t as annoying.

Not all the actors in the movie are completely atrocious. In fact there are a lot of big names in bit parts that seem to be in on the joke and are completely okay with hamming it up and being a little extra ridiculous. John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, and a personal favorite Alan Tudyk all have some great moments in the movie and help bring some intended laughs to the screen.

There are plenty of laughable moments in the movie, mostly due to the writing of Ehren Kruger and the one liners delivered by the cast. Throughout the movie there were many cringe worthy moments that had many people laughing at what was transpiring on the screen. It was as if Kruger’ had just watched an action movie marathon and tried to hit as many cliché action movie lines as possible. Noticeable guffaws also came when, for no particular reason, Bay chose to just have his leading lady standing still, hair blowing in the wind while explosions are set in the background. You could almost see the smile I assume was on his face as he was shooting this scene.

If the writing wasn’t bad enough for you than maybe the music will be. Anytime they want to try and push the emotion to a new level they try and insert some emo-soft-rock. It is the same type of music you heard in the last movie, but it is still just as annoying if not just as cheesy as before.

Not only does he love his music selection but as mentioned before Michael Bay loves his special effects. If one is really cool, but there is a chance you may miss it, don’t worry. Chances are he’ll slow down the action so you can take in everything and be mesmerized by the things his CGI team can do. Most of the effects in the movie are pretty cool, the battles are great and somehow he is able to make these robots in disguise seems real. The moments that check you back into the theater and make you realize you are watching something on a screen are his attempts to use the 3D technology. Reportedly Bay originally has hesitant about using the technology as he believed it to just be a gimmick, that’s right even Michael Bay believes that 3D technology is cheesy. But when the studio said they were going to use it no matter what at least he attempted to control the situation. The scenes in question occur whenever Shia gets thrown towards the audience, and it seems to happen fairly often, the trade off of using the 3D image is usually a less clear image which is an immediate reality check. Hopefully one day they will stop with it entirely, until then though we are stuck with higher ticket prices for a less polished product.

These battle sequences take up a predominant portion of the movie. If you thought it took a long time to destroy Egypt, just imagine how long it would take to destroy a major U.S. city. I wish I had brought in my timer to let you know just how long the final battle takes place, but even Spielberg capped ‘Saving Private Ryan’ at 30 minutes for the opening battle, this finale runs much longer. I hope you don’t have anywhere to go, because to tell his story this movie runs at an impressive 2 hours and 37 minutes.

I rag on Bay a lot in this movie blaming him for a lot of his choices, and while all the criticism, positive or negative, deserves to be tossed his way because he is the director, I don’t hate him. His brand of film making is just not for me, I prefer things like story and writing and character development. While he prefers making the exact type of movie he wants to. And no matter what I or any other critic say chances are you are going to see this movie. Truth be told I’m just jealous of him, and all of the people out there that can sit back and really enjoy this movie, I am just not one of them. F